Runaway
by Farther
Summary: [AU,InuKag] Inuyasha is the illegitimate sone of a wealthy business man who is on the run from military school. Kagome is the young artist who lets him stay. (Title changed from 'FLY AWAY')
1. Lie Down With the Dogs

**Note:** This fic is loosely based on the film Igby Goes Down, but not as good, and with less drugs. (Straight-edge for life! Yes, I am a dork. How could you tell?)

"Two jumps in a week, I bet you think that's pretty clever don't you boy.  
Flying on your motorcycle, watching all the ground beneath you drop.  
You'd kill yourself for recognition, kill yourself to never ever stop.  
You broke another mirror, you're turning into something you are not."

– "High and Dry," Radiohead

**Lie Down With the Dogs**

The hall stretched out for a long way on either side of the door to the head warden's office, and in the walls the doors and windows of the staff offices made an unflinching pattern until the stairway interrupted at both ends.

Inuyasha had always wondered what the windows were for. It seemed stupid to have windows inside, but he had been to enough different schools to know that most staff offices had them. And that the blinds were most always drawn shut, making the windows moot anyway.

They could probably save some money in construction, he thought, if they just eliminated the damn indoor windows.

The door to the right of him, which was the warden's door, opened suddenly, and the click and slam of it bounced around the plaster and linoleum. Natsumi's heels tapped sharply on the floor as she moved to stand in front of him, staring down her thin, pointed nose. She seemed to tower over him, slumped low as he was in the office chair.

"Get up," she sighed, disgusted, exasperated, rolling her eyes.

Inuyasha slung his book bag over his shoulder and followed his step-mother down the hall. She kept glancing back at him, with her red, pouting mouth twisted as if she'd tasted something sour.

"What?" he asked, a little irritated. "Afraid you'll lose me?"

"Oh, please. Don't even start." Natsumi paused, looked around for eavesdroppers, then hissed, "Do you know how bad this makes me look?"

Inuyasha pushed air through his lips. "Pff. Not my problem."

"Oh-ho!" Natsumi stopped and turned around, hands on slender hips. Beneath her rouge, her face flushed angrily. "Not your problem? Not _your_ problem!?" She stopped and seemed to collect herself, again searching for listeners. Her eyes tried to cut into him. "We're leaving."

They left the building, now in the grassy quad area where the cherry blossom trees grew unrestrained, fenced in only by the ancient brick buildings of the school. Their feet squashed the grass as they made their way to the driveway, and the breeze played with Inuyasha's long tail of black hair.

"This is the last school that would accept you," Natsumi said briskly, looking over her shoulder at him. "Do you know what that means? Do you?"

Inuyasha said nothing.

"I warned you, I don't know how many times. It's military school for you, this time. As soon as we reach the car, I'm going to make the call."

She was still looking back, maybe hoping to catch him flinch. Yeah, well, he wasn't going to bite.

"Yeah, right," he said, pulling his bag higher on his shoulder. She wasn't serious.

''''

Two minutes to night-check.

Inuyasha looked from the red glow of his digital clock to the door, watching, waiting for the echoing glow of the major's flashlight in the fogged window-glass.

One minute to night-check.

He stared hard at the door, trying to block out the snores of his roommate in the other bunk and concentrate on the approaching footfalls of heavy, military-issue boots.

Zero minutes to night-check.

He saw a flicker suddenly, dulled at the door's window, creeping in beneath the crack. He closed his eyes and turned away, pulling the sheets up to his chin. The light passed over him, then away, and the door thudded softly in its frame. The boots clapped away down the hall.

Inuyasha waited, not moving, breathing shallowly through his mouth. When the dorms were still and silent again, he threw off the sheets, fully dressed, and bent down over the edge of the bed to lace his boots. His fingers flew over the bindings like moths at a bulb, close and then away again.

Once that was done he jammed clothing and pillows beneath his blankets to simulate the form of a body. Inuyasha checked the room once more and left, bolting quickly and silently into the corridor like a rabbit. Not that he was afraid, or anything.

He hurried down the shadowed hall until he found the door to the showers and slipped inside. Relief allowed him to breathe normally again for a moment, before his gut tightened in anticipation.

He moved past the rows of lockers into the more open shower area, feeling alone with only the sound of his own breathing, even though he knew he was not. From the windows high in the walls moonlight was drawn into the room and made the white tiles eerie and luminescent.

"Almost thought you weren't gonna show, dog turd."

Koga stepped out from a row of lockers. He cracked his knuckles loudly, and his watery blue eyes glinted with the light from the tiles.

"Oh, sorry." Inuyasha pretended to be studying the far wall. Fleabags like Koga were easy to set off. "I know it's not polite to keep a lady waiting..."

And just like that, Koga charged him. Inuyasha skittered away from the first fist, and caught the second one well enough to nail Koga under the ribs, but afterwards his arm felt unnaturally loose from the pressure.

"You'll pay for what you did," Koga growled, backing off a little.

"You mean for making you look foolish?" said Inuyasha, relishing the memory of Koga's face as his rifle mysteriously backfired during practice. "Because you don't really need any help for –"

"Shut up!"

Koga swiped at him. For a while the only noises were grunts and winded breath and the occasional smack of a fist connecting. Their arms locked, and they tussled briefly before pushing away as if by tacit agreement. The two watched each other, wary as predators because it seemed to be an even contest.

Koga smirked.

"Ginta! Hakkaku!"

Koga's two hangers-on were behind Inuyasha suddenly, clamping onto his arms with grips that stubbornly refused to yield to his struggling.

"What the hell is this, Koga!?"

Koga didn't answer, just smiled, wound up, and swung away at him. They let him go when he was half conscious and delirious with bruising.

"Careful putting him down," said Koga. So they laid him on his back, and Koga leaned over and patted his cheek mockingly. "Wouldn't want to mark up that face."

Of course, there would be no bruising where it was visible.

"Later, dog turd." Koga walked right over him, and his followers went after.

Inuyasha lied like a dead thing on the concrete floor. The pain was pleasantly fuzzy and far off as he stared at the ceiling and felt his muscles jumping at their sudden respite.

He could feel the film of dirt on the floor and the coolness of it through the thin, buzzed remains of his hair. If there was one thing he hated about the military academy it was what they had done to his hair. His only consolation was that he'd heard Koga had once had long hair, too.

His long, wheezing sigh went out bravely into the emptiness.

Gripping the locker room bench with his blunt fingers, Inuyasha dragged himself off the floor and staggered back to his room, rubbing the black stubble on his scalp and missing the long, long tail of it.

''''

The family sat around the dinner table, looking stiff and polished in their formal wear. The thrum of conversation studded with the tinkling sounds of silverware seemed to pass around their table and leave them isolated in a stilted, enveloping silence. Natsumi chattered to fill the silence, but the void was a reaction of nature to the four of them together, and so, indomitable.

Inuyasha speared a yellow string-bean with his fork, looked up, and saw his half-brother Sesshomaru do the same across from him. Lord Almighty, this was boring.

To Inuyasha's right his father conversed politely with Natsumi, who was seated at Inuyasha's left and smiling. But she was doing it wrong, he thought. Normal people didn't smile that much when they had no emptiness to make up for.

"Inuyasha," said Touga, his father, suddenly. "I hear your doing well in school."

Yeah, sure, as long as 'well' was a relative term.

"Yes, he hasn't caused any trouble. So far." And there was an edge to Natsumi's voice that said he had better not cause any in the future.

Inuyasha wondered why she didn't seem to remember that he had illicitly spent a day and a night in the Waldorf on Park Avenue before the major had tracked him down. Probably she hadn't wanted to aggravate Touga by mentioning it to him.

"Hm. I didn't think he had it in him," Sesshomaru drawled with irony, fully aware of his younger brother's brief bid for freedom. He had the smooth, lacquered voice of an aristocrat.

At that, Touga gave a deep-throated laugh. It seemed to catch somewhere inside of him, and rip open and spill out of his mouth as a gritty cough. He held up a hand to ward off the assistance of his wife and first-born son while he bent over to the side, hacking wetly over the floor.

The fit soon sputtered, slowed, stopped.

Touga sat up and shook himself, smiling as if to say to the table 'see? Everything is fine.' His hand was at his breast pocket, fondling the carton of cigarettes inside, but never taking one.

No one said anything, and the strangers in the restaurant who had stopped to watch in horrified fascination returned to their meals as if nothing had happened.

Yeah, dad was sick. Dad was dying. Dad had been dying for so long that Inuyasha didn't think he cared anymore. Let him do it, he thought, just let him get it over with.

"Well..." said Touga, "Well. Inuyasha. How would you like to go down to California with me over the break?"

Why, yes, he would, thank you very much. He could definitely find somewhere to crash in California. Somewhere, anywhere, that wasn't the academy. His father would probably be too busy working to care. But he didn't want to seem too eager.

"Where would we be staying?" Inuyasha asked.

"I have a condo near Carmel where we'll be celebrating the opening of the new gallery. How does that sound?"

He pretended to think about it. "Acceptable."

"Okay then. Excellent. We'll leave on Monday."

Inuyasha allowed himself a tiny smile of triumph. It looked like his secret plan would be easier to fulfill than he'd thought. He was getting paid fare to California. He could hide out there and with any luck escape spring semester at the academy. He was leaving on Monday.

And that was that.

''

A/N: Bwahaha!! I cut off Inuyasha's hair! On a side note, this is about as close to the film as this story is going to get. The rest of it will be more divergent, I swear. So... love it? Hate it? Want to take it out for dinner, then make love to it? Feel free to tell me. nudge-nudge

Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable within this story, including Inu-Yasha, Igby Goes Down, and the songs at the top of each chapter where I plug my favorite bands. This is applicable to all chapters, so I'm not going to repeat it over and over again.


	2. Candy From Strangers

"The air was crisp  
Like sunny late winter days  
A springtime yawning high in the haze  
And I felt like I belonged"

– "Hell is Chrome," Wilco

**Candy From Strangers**

Carmel was a very un-large town beachside of California. It was a place for old people to retire and work on their hobbies, where everybody and his brother owned an art gallery or a craft and souvenir shop. Touga owned quite a few of them himself. Touga owned a lot of things.

And Inuyasha just didn't care, except that it gave him a very un-small trust fund, which was useless to him for a while because he couldn't touch it until he was eighteen.

Apartments and temporary homes of the sort he was looking for appeared virtually non-existent here, in this verdant tourist haven. And if they weren't, he had no means of finding them.

He spent the first day at the condo, watching the beach, which Touga could section off if he wanted to, and the people who visited it when he didn't. When that grew dull, however, Inuyasha was just bored and restless, filled with the futile, manic energy of a caged rat.

As he had predicted, his father left him generally on his own. The only thing that showed any type of promise was the gallery opening. There would be real people there, and they would bring opportunity to him. Or if they didn't, he was capable of escaping to the city and finding it himself. But for now he would wait.

Inuyasha stretched out in a white rubber deck chair on the balcony. The chair was one notch from fully reclined, so there was nothing to see of the beach but a vague, impressionistic image of it through the glass blocks in the balcony wall.

He stared at the gray, blanketed sky, sipped a young Micante experimentally from the good crystal, and thanked whatever gods there were that Touga had hid the keys to the liqueur cabinet in such an unimaginative place. Really, the sock drawer? How amateur.

Inuyasha set down the glass, and his head lolled to the side lazily. For no reason his eyes went to the line of window in the concrete. The gray and brown beach colors swarmed together or apart in the little hills and valleys of the glass, and he contemplated a small piece of black and green moving slowly from one pane to the next.

Oh. Oooooh. That was a person, walking. Inuyasha sat up to get a better look.

The dark smudge of hair made the person easy to pick out, and there was no one else on the beach that day because the sky was teasingly threatening rain. It was a girl in an electric green t-shirt. She was watching her feet take long, elaborate steps in the sand, and periodically looking up to scan the horizon. A small duffel bounced against her back.

There was a cliff out there where the waves crashed, and she walked to the edge of it, and just stood in the spray. Inuyasha watched her.

He imagined she might be very pretty up close. Of course, he wasn't going to go down there just to find that out.

The t-shirt girl turned around and walked back in the way of the condo. She looked straight at him suddenly, and he was close enough to tell two things.

One, she was surprised, as if she had not noticed him before. Maybe she hadn't. Stupid girl. Two, she was quite pretty, unless she had some minute defect that wasn't visible from the balcony.

T-shirt girl waved at him with her small, pale hand. Inuyasha didn't wave back.

She walked down the beach in a different direction just as he considered shouting to ask her if she had her own place. He saw her become part of the distance.

That was just as well because he didn't really want to make a fool of himself by yelling.

Inuyasha returned to the consoling arms of the deck chair, and his eyes sought out the sky. A large drop exploded on impact above his eye, then another on his cheek, and two plunked into his wine glass.

He wondered what t-shirt girl would do now. Probably nothing.

Soon it began to rain in earnest, and, feeling stupid, he opened his mouth to taste it.

''''

The condo became a different place for the party. It was made up with pictures from the gallery, perfumed with alcohol and cigarette smoke. Strangers wandered with little plates of food from the buffet table or mixed drinks in their hands and joined their voices in the hum of conversation.

Inuyasha could think of worse wastes of time. He nipped drinks from the bar, and chatted with people who he didn't know and who didn't know him. Told them impulsively that he was an actor, a musician, an author.

And he was always watching, always searching for a match to the profile in his mind, and that afforded him an amount of detachment from the whole thing. It wasn't great. It wasn't terrible.

But he was anxious with the thought that he had to move and he had to move fast. Inuyasha panned through the guests with his eyes, hating the lot of them for their frivolity and at the same time lusting after their freedom.

Part-way through the party, Touga approached him, towing his older son behind him.

"Inuyasha, I'm sorry we haven't spent much time together," Touga said. Inuyasha discreetly hid his mixer on an end table in back of him. He wasn't old enough to drink. "It's been busy. You know."

Yeah. Yeah, of course. It was always busy.

"I'm sure he doesn't," put in Sesshomaru, managing to be all blandness and no condescension.

Sesshomaru had probably spent a great deal more time with Touga in the past few days than Inuyasha had in his entire life. But Sesshomaru was Touga's business protégé, after all.

Served him right for being the legitimate one.

"Well, I'm sorry, anyway," Touga lied.

And Inuyasha knew it was a lie because if Touga had really wanted to spend time with him he would have found a way to do it.

If Inuyhasha knew one thing it was the cardinal rule of the universe, which went like this: If you were rich enough (and Touga was) then you could find a way to do whatever you wanted.

Inuyasha's shoulders jumped casually.

"I'm fine," he said. Although it was more a general statement than a response to the apology, and really had nothing to do with anything, nobody seemed to notice.

"Glad to hear it."

All words fell on deaf ears after that.

Inuyasha's attention had zeroed down to one point. That point was a face in the crowd that was pinching and tickling at his memory, and suddenly his mind supplied him with a name, and he was so surprised and fixated that he knew he had to talk to her, as if this second sighting had cemented a connection between them.

Well, that and he now had a plausible trap door out of this conversation.

"Excuse me," said Inuyasha, into the middle of Sesshomaru's sentence, "I see someone." He glanced at Sesshomaru's drink. "Haven't you had enough?" he asked, and reproachfully took the cocktail from the limp hand of its owner as he walked away.

Because he had seen t-shirt girl, and now he had to find her. But sometime in the moments after he had looked away she had disappeared. Inuyasha sifted through the people with his eyes, and found nothing.

"Hey," he prodded a man in square glasses who had been standing nearby. "Did you see a girl here a minute ago? Black hair? Dressed in black and white?"

The stranger's answer was written on his empty, uncomprehending face.

"I saw her," said a woman who had been listening. "Went outside, just now."

He left without thanking her.

When Inuyasha opened the sliding door he found the balcony empty, but there were a few people on the beach, and he went down the stairs that led to it. The sand raked his good shoes, left them dirty and scuffed and stripped of their luster.

The girl was a short distance off, hugging herself against the wind in her clean white blouse, and staring out at the point where the cliff dropped down into the sea. She shuffled her feet, and her black dress slacks rustled. A pair of spike heeled sandals dangled by glossy black straps in one hand.

"Hey," Inuyasha called when he was close enough for his voice to carry.

She looked at him, and then away as if he didn't exist. Well. If the wench thought he was going to be deterred by a little thing like that, she had another thing coming.

"You're that t-shirt girl," he persisted, coming up next to her. "From yesterday."

"Um..." she said, and then a little reluctantly, "Yeah." She laughed. Finally she let him see her face and she looked embarrassed. "And you're that balcony kid."

"Mm-hm," he said. "So...uh, who are you?"

"Oh." Her feet made tiny basins in the sand, then made avalanches to fill them in. "I'm nobody."

"That's stupid," said Inuyasha mildly. "You can't be nobody."

Her mouth did a funny thing; it stretched and tightened, made dimples in her cheeks, but didn't smile. Her eyes swept to the side.

"You can if you're here with the caterers," she told him, and gave a humorless laugh.

"Oh."

She looked at him sharply.

"I mean, that's not important," he continued, scratching the spot below the curve of his skull. His hair was about an inch long now. Inch and a half, maybe.

Faster, he told it, grow faster. But nothing happened immediately.

Disheartened, Inuyasha remembered he was still holding onto the cocktail he had stolen from his half-brother. He took a swallow, and recoiled.

"Ugh," he commented. "Baccio punch."

His spit followed the plastic cup down to the ground.

"Hey!" the girl cried out suddenly. Her eyes bit into him. They were nice eyes. Blue, or gray, the color of the sky above the ocean on a cold day. "Hey, don't litter."

"It's just a cup..."

"Well, then, pick it up," she said boldly.

Inuyasha was caught in the middle ground of amused and affronted. "No," he said, and waited to see what she would do.

"Why not?"

He repeated, "It's just a damn cup."

"But what if it – if it kills some poor animal or something!" she said, and then her voice lowered. "I knew you would be a jerk."

She gave him a quick startled look, like a rabbit caught in the brush. Her hand crept to her mouth and touched it in disbelief as if she were touching a traitor.

Inuyasha had been growing irritated, but now he was morbidly curious. "What?" he asked, and then in quick succession, "Why?"

A short puff of breath left the girl's mouth.

"Well, for one, you didn't wave back at me yesterday. Two, you're probably filthy rich and spoiled, if you live here. And three – you didn't wave back at me!"

Inuyasha contemplated her strangely fierce expression.

"But I see you're not taking that personally," he said. "That's good."

She blushed, and her shyness seemed to win out over indignation. "Sorry," she murmured, tucking a snake of hair behind one ear. "I just... it was rude, you know."

"No, no, it's no problem. I'll make sure to acknowledge all the strangers I stare at from now on," said Inuyasha, a little caustically. He hurried on before she could retort. "So, what's your name?"

She looked at him, and then out at the sky. "It's Kagome. Kagome Higurashi."

"I'm Inuyasha Arato."

Kagome cracked a smile but wouldn't look at him. "That's not what I heard you say earlier. Mr. Watanabe, aspiring actor?"

"Oh, that. Well... you see... You see... I just like to mess with their heads," he told her finally.

"How do I know you're not messing with my head?"

"I'm not," he said. He imagined she was a little bit charmed. Good, good, good. "I swear. My dad owns this place, he's inside, and so is my – my half brother."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Touga's the one throwing this party. I could show you..." he offered.

"No, I believe you. You look like him." When she stared at him, it was as if she was staring into him and searching. "So...Touga Arato is your father. He owns a lot of art galleries, doesn't he?"

"Are you an artist?"

"I'm just a student..." Her flushed face was as good as an answer.

Huh. Interesting...

"Do you have your own place?" he asked.

"Why?" Kagome returned cautiously, quickly becoming tense and guarded.

Inuyasha hesitated. No, he decided, no, telling her all of it would be a bad move.

"You're lucky, if you do. I've always wanted to get away, out on my own," he said confidentially.

Kagome's eyes went to the condo and back to him.

"_Why_?" she repeated incredulously.

"I have my reasons."

She looked unimpressed.

He sighed. "You don't know what it's like."

"Well, that's the truth."

"Listen," Inuyasha pressed on, "I'm going to be in Carmel for a while. Can you recommend a place to stay?"

"Oh, I couldn't tell you. I live in Monterey."

Just as well. He didn't have enough money for a hotel long term, and he didn't plan on staying in one if he could help it.

"On your own?" asked Inuyasha.

Kagome eyed him sideways. "Back to that again, huh?"

"Just asking," he said, in what he hoped was a disarming tone. It seemed to work.

"I live with my cousin until I'm eighteen," she admitted, and seemed to catch herself. "But I guess I shouldn't have told you that."

"I'm no stalker."

"So you say." And she smiled a smile that seemed all for herself.

A voice traveled down to them from the balcony, interrupting the quiet rhythm of their voices like a discordant note. Inuyasha felt strangely indignant.

"Kagome!" the voice called.

A boy trotted down the stairs, his black shoes drumming the wooden panels, crunching the white sand. He was the slightest bit shorter than Inuyasha, but his hair was longer and ruffled youthfully in the wind.

Inuyasha disliked him immediately.

"What are you doing out here, Kagome?" the stranger asked guilelessly. "We have work to do."

"Just getting some air," said Kagome, with a tight smile.

"Oh. Well, we need you back inside..."

"I'll be right in, Hojo. You go ahead. It'll take me a minute to get my shoes back on."

"I can wait for you," said 'Hojo' brightly.

Inuyasha was starting to feel a little bit neglected, but remained silent.

"No, I'll manage," Kagome told him. Her voice had hardened just slightly.

"But –"

"I'll be right in, Hojo," said Kagome, sounding suddenly like steel put to words.

"Well...okay..." The boy knew when to leave apparently, but he looked doubtfully back over his shoulder until he disappeared into the house.

Little shit, thought Inuyasha, without knowing why.

The wind filled the short silence that followed with a simpering howl, drowning out the rest of the world and folding them intimately in a pocket of space all their own. Almost as quickly as it had come, the moment broke around them like an eggshell and was gone.

"He's nice," Kagome said as if to herself, "but sometimes..." She seemed to remember him, then. "Um, anyway, I ought to get back to work... It was nice talking to you."

As she walked away slowly, Inuyasha felt a tug somewhere within him as surely as if she had sunk a hook into his belly. No, she couldn't leave. She was the one, he was sure of it now. It could be no one else. There was no one else.

And on top of that he had spent too much time being polite to let her go now.

"Wait," said Inuyasha, catching her by the crook of her arm.

Kagome watched him expectantly. He realized he hadn't let go and withdrew his hand reflexively, as if he had been burned.

"What if..." He licked his lips, hating himself. "What if I want to talk to you again?"

"Oh!" Her eyes grew wide, then dropped abruptly to the ground. Her face was so red it was almost luminous. Something occured to Inuyasha.

She thought he... liked her... And that thought was quickly chased by another. Maybe he did, a little.

But she was also bloody irritating.

Inuyasha bit his tongue on a remark that would disillusion her about his intentions. Anything he said now would just come out as offensive. He had spent enough time around stuffy upper class brats to know that – not that it stopped him most of the time. This was important, on," she said finally, and led him back into the condo. They maneuvered through the crowd to the buffet table, where Kagome snatched a small paper napkin from beside a plate of canapés, and paused.

"Do you have a pen?" she asked. He began to pat his pockets. "Wait, never mind." She pulled a tiny black make-up case from her pocket. Out came a miniature pencil eyeliner, and she scratched something down on the napkin, and handed it to him.

"I have to go work now, but maybe I'll see you," she said shyly, and hurried away before she could change her mind.

But as she was leaving she turned around and waved at him with her small, pale hand. Inuyasha deliberately felt the bottoms of his pockets with his fingers.

Eventually the party slowed down and was over. And Kagome climbed into the catering truck that took her away into the sunset, wondering what she had just done. So ended the first adventure of t-shirt girl and the balcony kid.

''''

A/N: Inuyasha and Kagome... getting along?? OOC-ness, anyone? To all you kids at home, don't give your phone number to strangers like Kagome just did. Even strangers who look like Inuyasha. So... Like it? _Luuurve_ it? Want to trick it into eating a steak full of jagged metal so it will slowly bleed to death from the inside? Speak up! Don't be shy, dearies... (cackle)

Muchos Gracias to everyone who reviewed – I love you guys! And to clear up any confusion, everyone is human in this fic. Just to make it clear.


	3. The Things That Matter Most

**Note on title change:** Ergh, I went to check my reviews, and the very first one was this really scary note from some comic book company telling me I stole their title and that they would take me to court if I didn't ask permission. Since they left their e-mail address, I tried to ask, but for some reason the letter wouldn't go through. So I got really scared and decided to just change it. Yeah. True story.

"Drink up baby down  
Are you in or are you out?  
Leave your things behind  
'Cause it's all going off without you  
Excuse me, too busy, you're writing a tragedy  
These mess-ups  
You bubble-wrap  
When you've no idea what you're like"

"Let Go," Frou Frou (the Garden State song!!)

**The Things That Matter Most**

The airport was populated sparsely, in the way that a store is populated before closing time, with piles of luggage scattered about as foothills to the sleepy, mountainous bodies of their owners.

Planes ran past the windows and out of sight, but the roar of them was a constant buzz in the background. The buzz went out and in, again and again, as if the planes were dragging it with them across the sky, talking back and forth in the rumbling language of mechanic birds.

Inuyasha stood awkwardly by his father in the waiting room, and felt around for something significant to say. But of course there was nothing. The boarding call had already been issued for his flight, number forty-six to Tokyo, and he was standing by his father, and both of them were stupidly silent. His duffel bag was his only companion.

Inuyasha's feet were preparing to leave, making shifting movements on the hard, wearied carpeting.

"It's been a pleasure having you stay, Inuyasha," said Touga. Even to Touga, it must have sounded like something a stranger would say, so he tried again. "I don't want to hear any bad news from that school of yours."

Inuyasha could safely say, "You won't."

"I hope not. Well... Ah...goodbye." And to make up for the something that was obviously lacking, Touga brought out his white, manicured hand. Inuyasha shook it unenthusiastically, suddenly sick with yearning both to be gone and to uncover that missing element.

"Bye," he said, as he walked away, past the rows of identical nest-shaped seats, and down the boarding tunnel. He hitched his bag higher on his shoulder, and stared straight ahead all the way.

Inuyasha found his seat, and sat heavily in it for five or six minutes, cradling his head in his hands. He looked up as a flight attendant passed by, smiling and perfect in her blue skirt and blazer.

"Excuse me, stuartess?" he said politely to catch her attention. "I need to get off the plane."

''''

Kagome's cousin rented a loft in Monterey where he lived. His name was Miroku Higurashi, and he left a lot of the space open for him to work. The hardwood floors were left unfurnished, and the couches were squashed into a corner as if huddling around the television.

Near that same corner was a door that led to an inconveniently small bathroom, and Miroku's own bedroom. The kitchen was down there too, and in it there was no table because the kitchen and the laundry room were the same, and the table would have left no room to do the laundry.

There had been a small laundry room and a second bedroom when Miroku moved in, but he knocked down the walls to make more room for his work. That was before he knew Kagome was coming.

Kagome ended up making her bed on a mattress that she moved about the floor wherever she liked, which worked out fine for her.

Usually, her mattress ended up close to the TV. Her feet sponged down into it as she returned to the couch, her hands full with the piping bag of microwave popcorn. The sofa welcomed her back, and she crossed her ankles, nestling a pillow between her body and the twin hills of her knees. The popcorn bag nuzzled her side.

On the TV screen a middle-eastern boy sang to Doris Day about the tourist trade, exposing rows of pearl-white teeth between his dusky brown lips. The phone rang just as Kagome was becoming comfortable, and drowned out whatever the boy sang next.

"I'm answering your phone, okay?" Sango called from the kitchen. The phone stopped ringing before Kagome could reply.

It was probably Miroku, trying to explain why he had kept Sango waiting for a half hour. Kagome smiled at the television. He would need good luck for that one.

But unexpectedly Sango's voice carried down the hall again. "Kagome, do you know someone named Inuyasha?"

Inu...yasha...?

Wonderingly, Kagome unfolded herself from the couch. She padded swiftly down the hall and snatched the kitchen phone from Sango. My god, she thought, because their meeting had been so surreal that she had convinced herself that, like a dream, it could never occur the same way again.

"Hello?" she said hesitantly into the receiver.

"Kagome," came the reply, in the inexplicably recognizable voice that was Inuyasha's. "Hi."

It was as if his reality was confirmed, and her memory of him jumped out at her in exquisite detail. She imagined strikingly violet eyes, a face harshly youthful, and shorn black hair. So black you could hang stars in it.

"Hi," Kagome echoed back. Her mouth twisted into a shape that resembled a smile, and she motioned Sango toward the door with a toss of her head.

Sango rolled her eyes, but left anyway.

"Um... how are you?" asked Kagome, while her toe made little circles on the floor. She felt nervous.

"A little cold, but alright, I guess."

Why did she feel nervous?

"I can't believe you called," she blurted, then made a face at her own awkwardness.

"Who else would I call in Monterey?"

"I don't know... You're the son of some rich guy, I just though you would have, you know, high society contacts, or something..."

"No," he said, so flatly that Kagome was taken aback.

"Oh. Well... I just can't believe you called me," she tried again.

"Hey," his voice buzzed into her ear, simultaneously close and far away. "I want to ask you something."

Irrational as it was, her heart thudded faster.

"What is it?"

"In person," said Inuyasha on the other end.

"Oh... Um..."

"What?" His voice had the stretched quality of a smile. "You don't want to see me?"

"Not really," Kagome giggled.

"Oh, so you were just jerking me around by giving me your number."

She smiled. "That's the idea."

"Wench."

"You'd better be nice to me. I don't go anywhere with strangers who don't treat me right," she told the receiver slyly, buffing her nails on her long flannel robe for effect that went unseen.

"But you do make a habit of going places with strangers?"

"Naturally," lied Kagome.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

There was silence on both ends.

"You hungry?" asked Inuyasha. "I'll buy you lunch."

And now whatever assurance she had gained from the conversation was stripped away like twigs against the prevailing force of the wind.

"Um..." She hooked the word on her lips and let it stretch. Yes? No? Did it matter? "Where are you?"

"I'm, ah..." In her mind's eye she could see him searching for something recognizable. "Heh. Where else? Cannery Row."

"Oh. That's not too far."

"Come on. I'll treat you."

Kagome remained silent for a long while.

"Kagome?"

"You said it was cold out, right?" she asked, watching her feet move slowly on the floor. What had she gotten herself into? "I'll bring a jacket. Meet me in the diner, okay?"

"Okay. Uh, see you."

"Bye."

The phone returned to its cradle with a click of plastic.

Inuyasha must have been used to getting what he wanted, Kagome reflected as she went to dress. He was good at it.

''''

Inuyasha watched the tin spoon fly slowly under the purposeful control of Kagome's hand. It dove deep into the mounds of whipped cream, which were tall and bilious like clouds, and sought out the white and pink gold of the ice cream. On a brown napkin nearby, an artificially red cherry was sweating and glistening in the dark spot of its own perspiration.

"Mmm," Kagome sighed as the clean spoon slid out from between her lips. Then again, "_mmm_."

Inuyasha's cheek pressed heavily into the palm of his hand, and his eyes, following the spoon, were idly half-lidded.

"Are you sure you don't want real food?" he asked, for the third time.

"This _is_ real food," she replied. "The sundae is one of mankind's great achievements. It's like the fruit of... um..."

"A cow?" supplied Inuyasha, smirking.

She wrinkled her nose. "Cow-fruit?"

"Is that above you somehow?"

Kagome's tongue flashed at him, and it had a thin stripe of brown fudge down the center.

"That's disgusting," he noted absently.

"Jerk."

"And what of it?"

"You want some?" Kagome asked, instead of responding. "There's an extra spoon here." She wagged it in front of his eyes temptingly.

"No," he said bluntly.

"It's goo-ood..." She took a demonstrative bite with her own spoon, returning the extra to its place on the table.

"No." He folded his arms for good measure.

She loaded her spoon with a dripping pile of ice cream and whipped topping and extended it toward him. "Here."

Inuyasha allowed his eyes to speak for him.

"Oh, come on..." As Kagome leaned forward over the table her blouse revealed a generous dip of her cleavage between the open lapels of her coat.

"Uh..."

Laughing, she stuck the spoon into his gaping mouth, spilling the desert over his chin and the tip of his nose.

Immediately Inuyasha recoiled in surprise, sputtering. He groped for a napkin and covered his face with it. His eyes narrowed as they took in Kagome, giggling across from him.

Bitch, he thought, bitch! Had she done that on purpose? But there was no way to know, and looking at the plain long hair and smiling face he doubted she could be that manipulative.

An accident, then. The idea calmed him somewhat.

"You like it?" Kagome asked brightly.

And suddenly he was not so calm. But for his own sake he limited himself to glowering at her.

Wordlessly she pushed the extra spoon toward him. Inuyasha eyed it briefly. Whether he had liked it or not, his dignity wouldn't allow him to take another bite. Kagome shrugged and lifted her spoon again to her mouth.

"So..." She paused to swallow. "So, your life must be interesting. Tell me about yourself."

Tell me about yourself. Tell me, tell me... Something tightened inside him, rebelled violently against the idea.

"What are you, a paparazzi?" he asked irritably.

Her eye ticked. "What are you, a jerk?"

He stared at the white table top, feeling guilty. Why?

"I don't want to talk about me," Inuyasha told her sullenly.

"Hm... suspicious behavior..." she said, but didn't press, and he was oddly grateful even though he really didn't want to be. He had always hated being grateful to anyone.

"Fine," Kagome bounced back quickly, "let's talk about me, then."

He stared hard at her, taken aback by her sudden change of pace.

"Who _are_ you?"

"That's what I'm about to tell you," she said, pulling her spoon slowly out of her mouth as she paused to think. "Hm. Let's see... I was born in Japan, and I lived there until I was almost sixteen. My family owned a shrine where we lived – ugh, my grandpa told the lamest legends ever..."

"You don't have much of an accent," Inuyasha observed.

"I know. I worked really hard on that, took speech lessons and everything."

"Why?"

"Oh..." Kagome's tapped her lip absently. "I guess it was a way of leaving my old life behind... I was so transfixed with getting away from home I was ready to jump down a well if it would take me someplace else. I could have, too; we had one on our property."

"Why would you want to leave?" he asked, a little interested in spite of himself.

As soon as he said it he could tell it was something he shouldn't have touched.

"It felt... fake."

"Oh."

Beat.

"Um... I had a younger brother. And a cat."

"You sort of lump those two together, don't you?"

"So would you," said Kagome smartly. The words were flowing easily between them again, awash in relief after the tension. "No, I love Sota. I miss him."

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. "How quaint."

"Pfft. Isn't it?" she said, one corner of her mouth turning up sardonically. "Don't you ever miss your bro –"

"No," he interjected shortly. "Why would I?"

"Jeez, you're irritable," she sighed. "I guess that was a stupid question, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, that's where you're _supposed_ to say, 'it's alright, you couldn't have known.'" When he didn't reply, Kagome continued, "So, did you run away or did your family kick you out?"

"They didn't kick me out!" he snapped.

The suggestion was repugnant to him in some way that he couldn't decipher even from within his own mind. That, as much as Kagome's audacity, made him angry, but he couldn't afford to lose his temper with her. At this point, she was all he had.

Still he wondered, would his family have tossed him on his ear? Would it hurt - and then, reluctanly - how much?

No. He didn't care, didn't want to know.

"I left," said Inuyasha. "On my own."

"I'm happy for you," Kagome told him around a bite of sundae, which she made a production of swallowing after the fact.

"I need a place to stay," he said baldly, suddenly tired of talking, tired by the effort of simply being. It was the adverse effect of Kagome's energy, he thought, but maybe that wasn't it at all.

"Do you have money?" she asked, seeming to pay more attention to the task of eating her dessert than speaking with him.

"A little. Enough for a couple nights in a motel or something."

She hmm-ed thoughtfully, beginning with a long, "well..." and then trailing off to nothing.

Inuyasha sighed. This was going to be the grueling part. In his frustration he ran his fingers through his hair, and then grimaced at the length of it. He looked up in time to catch Kagome staring at him.

"What's wrong?" she asked. It sounded almost like she... cared. Or something.

He couldn't hold her gaze, and flicked his eyes down to the table top.

"Nothing."

Maybe she could tell it was a lie, because she fell quiet after that. The truth wasn't important anyway; he didn't owe it to her. He didn't owe her anything.

So why was there the ghost of the feeling that he did? What was it about Kagome that made him feel like he had always known her?

"Were you going to ask if you could stay with me?" said Kagome quietly.

Inuyasha glanced at her sharply, with wide eyes.

"Go on," she said, smiling secretively, "ask me."

"Feh." He folded his arms and looked away, hating her. "What do you know?"

"I know you're desperate," she said flatly.

For an endless while they matched stares.

"I can pay you rent once I turn eighteen," Inuyasha ceded finally, disoriented by the strange turnaround. This was not what he had expected, but then, neither was Kagome.

"And when is that?" she asked, seemingly curious.

"Soon..."

"Uh-huh. How old are you?"

"I'm seventeen," said Inuyasha. Then a beat later, "I'm very close to seventeen."

Kagome laughed. "I'm older than you!"

"By how much?"

"About a year, I guess. I'm very close to eighteen."

"That's nothing," he snorted.

Kagome shrugged in response, and there was another one of those short, thoughtful silences that seemed to mark their conversations like boulders parting a curtain of flowing water.

Inuyasha watched her circle her spoon in the tall sundae glass, which was now down to the dregs.

"Can I stay with you?" he asked finally. "I'll... I'll set you up."

"You will?"

"Yeah – when I'm done with you, you could be bigger than Warhol, bigger than Hockney, bigger than Takahashi!"

She blushed under the praise, but grinned widely.

"Um... Okay. Deal."

They shook hands over the table.

"Of course," she continued, "I'll have to convince Miroku – that's my cousin – but I think I can handle that... and you'll have to take the floor. Or the couch if you want it, but honestly the floor would probably be better for your back... Yeah. You can stay for a while."

"I'm going to pay you, you know. I don't take charity."

"I know," said Kagome simply. She pushed the nearly empty glass towards him. "Do you want the rest?"

Inuyasha eyed her warily.

"Why did you agree so quickly?"

"Don't make me think too hard about it," she said laughingly, but he felt it was important.

"Wait, I want to know."

Kagome looked out the window and twisted her lips. She turned back to him after only a moment.

"In the name of spontaneity," she said seriously.

"Right..."

"Do you want the rest?" she asked again.

His eyes went to the sundae glass and up to hers, and back down again. It came back to him at that moment that he hadn't eaten since early that morning.

Silently and grudgingly he finished off the last bites.

As they left, Inuyasha was still wondering. How did she do it? How did she turn things around that way? And what had he gotten himself into?

''''

A/N: Heh heh.... Inuyasha's line "I'm seventeen. I'm very close to seventeen." Is not mine. It is blatantly ripped off from the movie!! Bwaha! Anyway, we see a new side to our dear Kagome here... interesting. So, how did you like it? Was it too cold? Too hot? Jusssssst right? You can tell me, you know. I'll just be right over here. Waiting. (twiddles thumbs)


	4. If You Want to Live Here

"Because it was nothing like we'd ever dreamt

Our lust for life had gone away with the rent we hated

And because it made no money nobody saved no one's life."

– "So Says I," The Shins

**If You Want to Live Here**

Miroku was fucked. And the worst part was that he knew he was fucked, even though he was still refusing to admit it to himself.

Standing outside the door to his apartment, Miroku inhaled deeply, shook out his limbs, and told himself to just be smooth. As always.

He brought the key up to the lock, and slowly, ever so slowly, inched it forward into the crevice on the handle. The hope was that the TV would be going, and thus, drown out the sounds of the door, which would be as small as he could make them.

The key was now entirely in. Wincing all the way, Miroku began to turn it. Each minute click of the moving lock felt like a cardiac arrest. Finally the door was open and Miroku slipped inside.

Well, the TV was going, but the couches were conspicuously solitary over there in the corner, and a bitingly cold breeze was wafting into the room. Miroku closed the door behind him as discreetly as he could, looking around at the walls, white, pure, pristine, just as they should be, and the sheer, cream colored drapes flying out about the open window, enshrouding the figure on the sill like ghosts.

Sango was sitting in the crook of the window frame, half outside on the fire escape. She was looking down, absorbed in something, and appeared not to have noticed him. Thank God for small favors.

She was dressed simply in loose- fitting linen pants and a black sweatshirt. Not exactly a provocative style, but... The wind tossed her long, dark hair, and he saw a delicate, white hand reach up to tuck it behind her ear. But there was always something about Sango...

A plaintive mewling reached his ears, and Miroku knew what had absorbed her attention so completely. He sighed.

"Why are you always feeding that stray?" he asked, coming into the room.

In the window, Sango's silhouette stiffened suddenly, and just as quickly relaxed. But she didn't look at him. It looked like it would be the cold shoulder this time.

"That cat's always at my window now," Miroku continued, peeling out of his coat and hanging it up on the rack by the door. He approached the window and leaned up against the wall next to it. "Scrounging for food... It yowls at night, you know."

"Maybe I wouldn't feed the cat," Sango snapped, "If I actually had something to work on." She lifted the scraggly kitten and an empty plate off the fire escape and brought them inside, shutting the window. Without even looking at him, she walked away to the kitchen, presumably to clean off the plate.

"You can't rush art," Miroku called to her retreating back.

Huh. She hadn't even yelled at him. And he couldn't tell if that sign was bad or good, but he did feel oddly neglected.

Oh, well. Good thing he had news he was sure she'd be glad to hear.

He was about to follow Sango into the kitchen when she reappeared, with the tiny kitten in her arms.

"Well," she said icily, "where were you for the last hour?"

"Uh... I'll tell you, of course, Sango. Honesty is the best policy in every relationship –"

"We don't have a relationship!" she interjected forcefully. Ignoring that outburst, Miroku continued steadily onward.

"But first, I must ask, why did you bring that cat inside?"

Sango boosted the cat a little higher in her arms. "I brought _Kirara_ inside because it's too cold out there for her."

"Take her back to your place, then," he said.

"My building doesn't allow pets."

"Well, neither do I."

She bent down and let the cat scamper across the floor. Miroku cringed inside, listening to the scrabble of little claws on his smooth, beautiful hardwood floor.

"I don't want the cat, Sango," he said firmly. Yeah, that would do it. Nice and firm.

"Why not?" she challenged, hand on hip. Damn. That was usually a sign of trouble.

Miroku didn't really know why, himself, actually. It had been sort of a long-standing issue with them, and he just enjoyed disagreeing with her.

"It'll get in the way," he said.

Sango stared at him. "Of _what_?" she burst out.

It was truly an effort to keep from grinning as he said this. Somehow, he kept his face and voice smooth as silk.

"Of our production."

He had been anticipating a gaping mouth, wide eyes, the works, but all he received for his trouble was a frown and a look of angry suspicion. What a jip.

"You mean the production with no title, no plot, no dancers, no sponsor –"

"But all that's changed," Miroku cut in excitedly. "That's where I was today; I found us a sponsor for our show."

Sango's reaction was, again, a little disappointing.

"How!?" she cried. "We don't even _have_ a show!"

"Not to worry," Miroku grinned slyly, and tapped a finger to his temple. "It's all in here. It came to me in a dream..."

Sango covered her face with her hands and groaned.

"Come on, Sango. I got it all set up."

This seemed to coax her into looking up at him, although all she did was stare. She was silent for a long while as her eyes seemed to harden.

Miroku's innate danger sensors began blaring.

"You did all this without me?" said Sango, in a voice that conveyed both pain and tight, steely anger.

This was going to be a long one. Which could mean only one thing – For sure this time, Miroku was fucked.

''''

Inuyasha and Kagome rode the trolley and walked a few blocks to the building, where Kagome fished a key out of her pocket, opened the door, and led him up a flight of stairs. Inuyasha was grateful to see the end of the trip at last because his duffel bag was weighing down on his shoulder and the muscle felt stiff and frozen.

"Let me go in first," said Kagome, when they reached what was apparently the door to her cousin's apartment. "I'll be just a minute."

She almost reached out for the handle, but the door flew inward suddenly, revealing a young woman dressed in black, with long brown hair down to the small of her back. She stopped short in front of Kagome, looking shocked and harried.

"Sango...?" said Kagome, with a tentative note of concern. The older girl, Sango, gave a loud sniff, as her name was echoed from somewhere inside the apartment.

"Hi, Kagome," she replied brusquely, pulling away from the man who had appeared behind her in the doorway. "I – I'm leaving."

She disappeared, taking the stairs two at a time, while the young man brushed past Inuyasha and Kagome to watch from the top step.

"Hey!" he called out. "Sango, wait!" But she didn't look back and he didn't move from the end of the landing. He turned and his fist hit the wall and he leaned his head on his forearm.

"Um... Miroku?" Kagome attempted.

Oh, so this was her cousin. On the way to the building, Inuyasha had learned that Kagome's cousin was an aspiring choreographer/producer. And, even more shocking, irrefutably heterosexual. And he'd thought his family was a little weird.

Ignoring their presence, Miroku began to laugh darkly and without humor. As his shoulders shook, Inuyasha could see a small tail of black hair flopping between them and was irrationaly jealous.

"She'll be back," said Miroku in a low voice as if he were talking to himself. "Shit, she'd better be back..." His eyes flickered in their direction, and he shoved off the wall and spun shortly on his heel to face Kagome.

"My dearest cousin," Miroku said, as if the entire scene had never taken place. "What is it you wanted?"

"Miroku..." she began softly, then her voice turned flat. "What did you do to Sango?"

His expression became one of guileless shock. "You accuse me? I would never..."

"Oh, sure you would."

"Well!" said Miroku, sounding honestly affronted. "Kagome, what goes on between Sango and myself is not for young ears such as yours."

"_Apologize to her_," Kagome growled with a voice that promised retribution. In her anger she seemed to fill the room and heat it up like an inferno. Inuyasha made a mental note never to get on her bad side.

To his credit, however, Miroku didn't cower before her, merely tugging uncomfortably at the collar of his long-sleeved charcoal shirt instead.

"All in due time," he managed, coughing just a little to cover a blip of awkwardness. "All in due time. Meanwhile..." His gaze found Inuyasha and latched onto him as one would latch onto a life raft.

"Who is this, Kagome?" asked Miroku with forced interest. His voice took on a tone of reluctant acceptance. "Another stray?"

As Kagome followed her cousin's eyes to Inuyasha, some of the heat seemed to go out of her. "Oh. That's what I wanted to ask you – can my friend stay here for a while?"

"You know any of your young lady friends are welcome at any time," said Miroku. Inuyasha imagined his smile was meant to be disarming, but it came out rather suggestive.

"Um... I meant this friend, here," Kagome told him, gesturing toward the place where Inuyasha was standing.

Miroku sighed. "I know. I just thought you could do with a little reminding."

"Uh- huh..." said Kagome, frowning. "I'll just ignore that. Anyway, can Inuyasha stay for a bit? Do you mind?"

"Well..." Miroku began thoughtfully, but never finished.

Kagome rolled her eyes in a long-suffering manner.

"I'll find out Sango's panty size," she offered dully.

Miroku seemed to perk up and looked wistfully down the stairs, the way Sango had gone.

"By...?" he prompted.

"By... finding you a pair of them," she completed reluctantly, in a tone utterly devoid of enthusiasm.

"Deal."

Once Miroku had left them alone out in the corridor, Inuyasha couldn't help asking, "What's with those two?"

Kagome gave a strange little sigh.

"They're in love," she said with irony. Then she looked at him. "Come on, let's get you inside."

''''

In the darkness, the excess amount of empty space made the apartment seem entirely barren, except for the magnetism of the gray shapes of the other couches. Inuyasha found, also, that if he held his breath and was very still, he could hear the soft wooshing sound that was Kagome's breathing, and Miroku snoring like a buzz saw from the other room. Periodically, a car drove past, and scattered the shadows to the corners.

Inuyasha tossed fitfully on the spongelike sofa, trying for comfort. Kagome had been infuriatingly right about the couch.

"God this is uncomfortable," he said to the room in general.

"You can try the floor if you'd like," came Kagome's voice groggily from somewhere nearby, startling him. He'd thought she was asleep.

"Okay," he agreed. If it would get him to sleep, he was willing to try it. Inuyasha tumbled off the couch, dragging blankets and pillows to the floor with him.

He lied on his back, unable to see the ceiling even as he stared straight up. A car flashed its headlights across his eyes as it sped by. Better, but still not great. Maybe Kagome hadn't been the best choice after all, but lying on her floor in the dark he couldn't imagine being anywhere else.

Inuyasha slowed his breathing and sought out the sound of Kagome drifting off to sleep, the gradual evening of her breath. Instead he heard a timid clicking noise, like claws on hard wood. A pair of luminous eyes peered out at him as if floating in empty space.

Inuyasha flinched, then sighed as he realized it was only Kirara, the cat. White fur appeared around the disembodied eyes as Kirara padded toward him. Flopping back down on his back, Inuyasha watched the cat surreptitiously, hands pillowing his head. She sniffed at him daintily before curling up in the center of his chest.

He would have tossed her off, but the small, warm bundle was oddly comforting, and the warmth of another body made him feel as if he was not alone. And if he squashed the cat in his sleep, it was the animal's own fault.

It felt different to fall asleep there, listening to the slow inhale and exhale of a person he half-liked but barely knew and feeling Kirara's tiny ribcage press into him with each intake of breath.

It was one of the most comfortable experiences of his life so far.

Surreal... but nice.

''''

A/N: Busy, busy, busy... Anyway, lots of introductions here. That's always fun. Don't you agree?

Thanks for reviewing, everybody!!


	5. It Was the First Time

"Where do we go nobody knows?  
I've gotta say I'm on my way down  
God give me style and give me grace  
God put a smile upon my face"

- "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face," Coldplay

**It Was the First Time **

On his first morning in the apartment, Inuyasha woke blearily from sleep. The cat had somehow ended up in the general vicinity of his head. He tossed the animal off his pillow, spitting out cat hairs. He didn't want to know how those got there. Lord. What had he been thinking when he let that thing near him?

Looking at the clock on the VCR, Inuyasha noted that it was disgustingly early and curled back up beneath his borrowed blanket. But too late. The ominous rummaging sounds that had been emanating from the kitchen silenced abruptly, footsteps drifted into the room, and he knew instinctively that it wasn't Miroku.

"Are you awake?" asked Kagome, around the piece of toast that was dangling from her mouth.

"Mm," he replied noncommittally, not moving.

"Well, I'm leaving. I've got to get to school now," she said. By the sound of her voice she was already moving towards the door.

Leaving?

"_Leaving_?" Inuyasha echoed, somewhat belatedly. He sat up and looked at her. "Why?"

Kagome stopped struggling into her jacket to quirk her eyebrows at him. "If you'll refer back to the statement I made two seconds ago... I'm going to school."

"You can't leave," he said abruptly and without pausing to consider it. His mouth felt strangely disconnected from his mind.

"You... don't want me to leave?" asked Kagome, with an odd, indefinable look on her face.

"Well," said Inuyasha, making a serious, if groggy, effort to think. "I'll have nothing to do if you're not here. I won't know what to do."

"Oh," she said shortly. "Is that all."

"Um... I guess so, yeah. What else would it be?"

Kagome made a small noise of irritation and walked out, heels clicking sharply on the wood floor. The door rattled in its frame after she was gone.

Inuyasha frowned at the doorway.

"What's she mad about?" he asked aloud, just as Miroku came into the room.

"Hey, no slam – oh," Miroku cut himself off upon seeing only Inuyasha. "It was Kagome."

"Yeah," said Inuyasha distractedly. He saw that Miroku was already dressed, and was in the process of tucking his black button-down shirt into the waistband of his matching slacks.

"Well, well. You work fast," said Miroku. "Pissed her off already, huh? Let me offer you some advice: You'll never get anywhere that way."

Kagome had warned him that Miroku had an astonishingly one-track mind, but Inuyasha was still affronted.

"What makes you think I would _want_ to get anywhere with _her_?" he said.

"You mean you haven't noticed?" Miroku inquired curiously. "Even I can see that Kagome is a very beautiful young woman..."

"Keh."

"Hm," said Miroku, thoughtfully. Suddenly he clapped his hands together. "Well. I'm off to work."

Inuyasha was unimpressed. "You work?" he asked, raising an eyebrow dubiously.

"Have to pay the bills somehow," replied Miroku, unphased.

"Where?" asked Inuyasha, still a little disbelievingly.

"The playhouse a few blocks over. I'm management," he added. Inuyasha couldn't tell if it was meant to sound self-abasing.

"Oh..." said Inuyasha. "Well, what is there to do, then?"

"What do you mean?"

"Around here, what is there to do? I was trying to ask Kagome, but she left already."

"Oh, I see," said Miroku sagely. "She rejected you."

Inuyasha glowered, but Miroku seemed miraculously unaffected.

"Ah, amore," he sighed theatrically. "Returning to your question, though, this place is one big tourist trap. There are thousands of things, just go walk around. Which reminds me..."

Miroku disappeared for a moment down the hall, and returned shortly. He placed a small object on the coffee table in front of the television.

"Spare key," he explained. "You'll need it to get back in."

"Oh. Thanks."

In much the same way that Kagome had earlier, Miroku crossed the room and struggled into his jacket.

"Duty calls," he said, as he left.

Ultimately, Inuyasha ended up taking Miroku's advice. After sleeping for another hour or two.

''''

Not ten minutes after Miroku returned home to an empty apartment that afternoon, a knock sounded at the door. First one hesitant tap, then two sharp stronger ones.

He almost stumbled as he ran to answer it, then paused to smooth his hair and compose himself in general before reaching for the handle. Calmly, he opened the door.

"I'm still mad at you," said Sango briskly, before he'd even had a chance to feign surprise.

Miroku swallowed. "Of course," he said, as smoothly as he could.

"But I'm willing to listen to your idea. Don't ask me why." Didn't they both know already?

"Okay."

"And I'm not going to stick around if it sucks." But, of course, she would anyway.

"You have every right."

"And I want to be completely informed from now on."

"Okay."

They stared at each other, Sango slightly defiant, Miroku trying to appear unruffled.

"Okay," said Sango, exhaling.

"You... want to come in?" he asked haltingly.

"Alright... But I'm still mad at you."

"Yes," said Miroku. As he closed the door behind them, he nearly sagged with relief. "Yes, of course."

''''

Inuyasha had spent the day meandering about through what felt like a thousand different stores. He had passed an hour or so at one of the myriad historical sites, but it had so thoroughly failed at capturing his interest that he could not remember what had been historical about it, except that the floors had creaked something awful.

He came home before the sun hit the horizon, and found Miroku and the girl from the other day – Sango? – conversing in the front room. They didn't even look up when he walked in, so Inuyasha skirted them carefully and retreated to the kitchen. Kagome was there, fiddling with the microwave.

She, at least, noticed his entrance, but Inuyasha suddenly recalled the way she had left that morning and paused in the doorway.

"Erm..."

But Kagome seemed to have let it go because she offered him a generous smile.

"Oh, hi, Inuyasha. How was your day?"

Well, he decided, no need to tip-toe if she wasn't angry.

"Boring," he said bluntly. "No thanks to you."

Kagome snorted above the hum of the mini-oven. "What am I, your personal entertainer?"

"You said it first," Inuyasha replied. He slid past Kagome and hopped up onto the dryer, leaning back against the wall. There were a couple chairs in the room, but they looked incredibly uncomfortable, all flat and straight-backed.

"You have a funny way of showing gratitude," said Kagome ironically, as she pulled a plastic tray out of the microwave, stirred it up, and stuck it back in for another two minutes.

Inuyasha watched her pop the fork into her mouth, cleaning off the sauce. Her eyes flickered towards him and caught him staring.

"What?" she asked.

It would have been wiser, perhaps, to just let it go, but Inuyasha couldn't resist asking. He was nothing, if not difficult.

"What was that about, this morning?"

Caught off guard, Kagome deliberately turned her face away from him.

"Oh, that – that was nothing," she said. "I was... just being stupid."

He stared hard at her.

"Are you sure that's all?"

"Of course that's all!" she said, flinging the microwave open. She prodded at the steaming meal with her fork. "What else would there be?"

Was it his imagination, or had her face turned unnaturally red?

"Nothing," said Inuyasha. He looked at the microwave meal. "What's that?"

Kagome lifted a box from the counter as she moved to sit down cross-legged on the machine adjacent to his, which was the washer.

"Chicken Florentine," she began in a monotone. "Roasted chicken tenderloins and spiraled rotini pasta covered in a delicate sauce, etcetera, etcetera..."

"Yum."

"You bet," said Kagome, taking a large bite. She glanced at him from beneath lowered brows. "Want a bite?"

Inuyasha took the proffered fork cautiously and speared the smallest piece of chicken he could find. He chewed slowly, contemplatively.

"This," he said, after a moment, "is without a doubt, the most unappetizing thing I have ever tasted."

"Fine, then," Kagome replied, unperturbed. "More for me."

"I didn't say it was _bad_." He grabbed for the fork. Kagome managed to steal another mouthful without toppling off the washing machine, before Inuyasha successfully took the meal from her and allowed himself a more generous portion.

She made a face, snatching back the tray.

"You're weird," she noted, almost carelessly, as she raised another piece of the meal to her mouth.

"That doesn't mean much coming from you," he scoffed.

"Really?" asked Kagome, lips turning up at the corners. She seemed genuinely intrigued rather than offended and leaned closer to him in interest. "You think I'm weird?"

Inuyasha gulped and instinctively avoided her nearness. "Well... You're not even eighteen –"

"But I'm close."

"– And you live thousands of miles away from your family. That's weird. Don't your parents care, or anything?"

She tapped her lip pensively with her index finger. "My mom was always very supportive of anything I wanted to do, even if it took me away from her."

"What about your dad?"

She shrugged, absently studying the top of the washing machine. "Dead."

Inuyasha felt distinctly uncomfortable. "Oh. Um..."

"Don't worry about it," Kagome sighed.

"My mom is dead," he offered after a moment of tense silence. This was a piece of information that rarely met with fresh air, but somehow it was okay to tell Kagome. More than that, he felt obligated to reveal it to her.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Don't worry about it."

That earned him an empty half-chuckle. She poked her fork around inside the plastic tray.

Suddenly, she looked up at him. "But your dad is still...?"

"Oh. Yeah. He's still alive." But for how much longer? She didn't need to know everything, he thought, abruptly angry at himself for revealing anything at all.

"We could do a 'parent trap,'" she laughed.

"No. My dad's married."

"He remarried? That's terrible."

Inuyasha eyed her sideways. He couldn't stand those sympathizing eyes on his face, hated her for even thinking she could understand.

"I'm a bastard," he said evenly. He made his voice hard, so the last word came out like a block of stone.

Kagome faltered, but barely missed a beat. "That must be rough," she remarked mildly.

Inuyasha brought his hand to his bowed forehead. He had wanted irrationally to crush her, and she had deflected it, like water off a duck's back.

"Shut up," he said sullenly, without looking at her.

Kagome's sigh was so suffused with exasperation that she must have been rolling her eyes as well. She pushed the microwave meal toward him, as if making an offering.

"Here. Have some chicken. You'll feel better."

And he did.

''''

A/N: Doe this chapter seem entirely random? Well, I suppose it sort of is, but things pick up next time, if all goes according to plan. Hehehe... Although its been so long since I updated that I honestly expect this story to have been thoroughly forgotten about...


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